Milos Raonic falls to John Isner in Wimbledon quarterfinals

milos-raonic-wimbledon-john-isner-quarterfinal

Canada's Milos Raonic returns the ball to John Isner of the United States during their men's quarterfinals match at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, in London, Wednesday July 11, 2018. (Ben Curtis/AP)

LONDON — Milos Raonic’s serve was good, but John Isner’s was better.

As a result, the Canadian’s run at Wimbledon ended in the quarterfinals for the second year in a row.

In a battle of two of the sport’s top servers, No. 13 seed Raonic lost 6-7 (5), 7-6 (7), 6-4, 6-3 against No. 9 seed Isner of the U.S., on Wednesday.

Isner is the only player at Wimbledon this year not to have had his serve broken — and Raonic had just one break-point opportunity against the six-foot-10 American. Isner responded with an ace on that occasion and then went on to take the fourth set.

Isner, meanwhile, converted on three of six break-point chances. The first break-point opportunity of the match came in the third set, and Isner made the most of it to go up 3-2.

Isner fought off a set point in the second set, which marked the eighth straight set to go to a tiebreaker between the two players.

Raonic, of Thornhill, Ont., fell two wins short of matching his best showing at Wimbledon — a runner-up finish in 2016.

Isner will face No. 8 seed Kevin Anderson of South Africa in the semifinals. Anderson upset top seed Roger Federer of Switzerland on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Canadian Gabriela Dabrowski is heading to the semifinals in women’s doubles.

The Ottawa native and partner Yifan Xu of China, the tournament’s sixth seeds, defeated the unseeded pair of Bethaine Mattek-Sands of the U.S., and Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 in a quarterfinal on Wednesday.

It marks the best women’s doubles showing at a Grand Slam for the 26-year-old Dabrowski, who advanced to the quarterfinals with Xu at the 2017 U.S. Open and 2018 Australian Open.

Dabrowski and Xu will face No. 12 seeds Nicole Melichar of the U.S. and Kveta Peschke of the Czech Republic in the semifinals.

Dabrowski has won two Grand Slam mixed doubles titles — the 2018 Australian Open with Mate Pavic and 2017 French Open with Rohan Bopanna.

Pavic and Dabrowski, the top mixed doubles seeds, lost in the third round at Wimbledon.

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